


Lay Your Hands, Rest Your Feet

by erinthesails



Series: The Only End I Foresee [6]
Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: Gen, Hannapocalypse, M/M, filthy self indulgent fluff of the, gross bastardizations of the baptist faith, it's the apocalypse who knows what john gets up to, variety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 10:08:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18754282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erinthesails/pseuds/erinthesails
Summary: It ain’t easy baptizing the antichrist, but God as his witness, John is going to try.





	Lay Your Hands, Rest Your Feet

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Indigo Children](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8058052) by [DesdemonaKaylose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose). 



> An epilogue of an epilogue of an epilogue of desdemonakaylose's Hannapocalypse series, which just keeps pulling me back in.

_Florida_

_Year six_

Conrad was already nursing the first bloom of a headache when they rolled into Tallahassee, but by the end of the night it had flourished into a veritable jungle of full-flowered agony.

Maybe it had something to do with the sun looming just under the rim of the horizon. Or the fact that he’d spent the whole night stomping from house to dilapidated house in search of pilling blankets and finger-puppet-sized socks. John getting a hand blown off not hours after they parked the RV was likely a contributing factor, and oh yeah, finding out the kid they’d been toting 600 miles across the deep south was the antichrist probably hadn’t helped either.

 God, he was tired.

The epiphytes of pain were spreading, latching onto every fold of his brain and he found himself envying those old money vampires who could just seal themselves up in a coffin and sleep, dead to the world, for days or weeks at a time.

 _This is what you get for taking a daytrip to fucking Florida_ , each new root of pain seemed to gloat.

Conrad squeezed the bridge of his nose, shifting the overstuffed diaper bag up his shoulder and willing the sun to stay below the horizon long enough for him to stump back to John’s house. Hanna, who had been in an almost manic state of glee since Fell left, had declined to return with him, insisting that they’d have even better luck begging baby essentials once the sun was up.

When Conrad had explained that they’d have to put their foster care plans for little Lamont—fuck, he guessed that was her real name now that they’d be keeping her a while, too late to unstick that one, the poor kid—on hold, Hanna had practically flung himself across the room at him. Lamont had to be quickly passed off into John’s waiting arms to keep her from getting squished in the process.

“YESSSS! I knew it, I knew you guys would keep her! Worth was getting attached, I could tell.” Every red hair on Hanna’s head was standing on end and he was practically vibrating with joy. Conrad thought he might combust. “Oh man, this is gonna be so great, I’ve always wanted to be an uncle! Bidzina is gonna flip!”

“You’re not an uncle, Hanna,” Conrad said irritably, untangling the jumble of arms from around his neck. “She is not our daughter and we are _not_ keeping her. Unfortunately for her, it looks like we’re the most qualified people in the immediate vicinity to take care of the antichrist, but there is absolutely no world in which we can raise a baby long term. I mean, we’re not exactly accountants, Jesus…”

Conrad’s eyes snapped over to the baby snoozing in John’s arms, as if the mention of her holy counterpart might have scalded her. But she’d slept on, no signs of trauma or hellfire, no reaction besides a yawn and a fat fist curling and uncurling at her cheek. Conrad’s shoulders relaxed, trying and failing to check the relief that washed over him.

Hanna didn’t seem to hear a word of that. He’d hardly paused long enough to grab Bidzina’s sleeve before dragging them both from house to dilapidated house all over town, collecting anything and everything they thought a baby might need from anyone who could spare it. The people of Tallahassee were surprisingly willing to share the bounty when confronted by Hanna’s wide-eyed pleas on behalf of a poor, little orphan baby who _really, really needed all the help she could get, if there’s anything at all you can give us that would be sooooo awesome_. Any mentions of antichrist and the infernal had been carefully left out, of course, and Conrad very much doubted those good folk would have been quite so giving if they’d known that half of the story. Conrad prickled with a protective sort of indignance at the thought.

He checked himself again, shaking his head.

Nope, no way, he wasn’t going there. It wouldn’t do anyone any good to go getting attached. They would be passing her off as soon as they found someone more suited to the job of raising her, and any parental feelings were best quashed sooner rather than later.

Surely there was some…antichrist colony or something better equipped to care for her? A harem of the monstrous? Though, Conrad supposed, that wasn’t too far off as a descriptor for their little travelling circus at this point. The undead outnumbered the living three to one now, and even Hanna’s relationship to humanity was tenuous at best.

But Lamont wasn’t undead. Or a monster or a demon, or any of the usual fauna who typically found their homes with ragtag gangs of fae. She was still more human than anything else, just a little… strange. Conrad could understand that well enough. Something twinged deep in his stomach.

There had to be somewhere she could have a better life. Surely, there must. He certainly wasn’t cut out for fatherhood, even when he had been alive, Bidzina had his hands full with the care and keeping of Hanna, and Worth…

Conrad shuddered. The words “Worth” and “fatherhood” were like oil and water. Vampires and sunshine. Bibles and antichrists. The idea of Worth as a father might actually be more terrifying than the thought of himself as one.

Conrad’s head ached, his bones ached, and now his shoulder ached after carrying this stupid bag halfway across the city. Dwelling on long term arrangements could wait. What he needed right now was to collapse in bed and sleep off this damn headache. That would be a start.

He shoved open the door to John’s place and dropped the bag just inside. With any luck, he could bypass any pleasantries and make a beeline for the bedroom, let the sweet release of sleep take him until tomorrow night. Instead, he found himself struck dumb in the doorway, immobilized at the lens of what he could only imagine was some sort of strange pocket dimension that had taken up residence in John’s living room.

John was perched like a mother bird on the arm of the couch, fire crackling in the hearth behind him. Little Lamont had been asleep in the crib when he left, but she was wide awake now, bundled up in some kind of fraying wool wrap that was almost certainly too rough for any baby, even the antichrist. But she didn’t seem to mind. Because at that moment, Worth was resting her in the crook of his arm, bouncing her almost imperceptibly, holding a bottle, an honest to god baby bottle, to her lips.

One tiny hand wandered through the air as if she were swimming, and the other had come to rest against Worth’s chin as she drank, opening and closing in the short, blonde hairs he had absolutely refused to let Conrad shave.

“You’ve got enough Twilight fer the both of us, princess,” Worth had grinned when Conrad ambushed him with a razor the week after he had turned. “Someone’s gotta be the man’a this household.”

Conrad had pretended to be irritated at the time, but now, with the fire throwing the three of them into gentle relief, that fuzz of stubble in the flickering light lent an almost a Norman Rockwellian softness to the sharp angles of Worth’s face.

Lamont’s chubby hands were tugging absently at what little tufts of hair they could reach, and Worth wasn’t even moving away, didn’t even look irritated. He was just staring at her with this strange expression that Conrad had never seen before.

Or maybe he had. Maybe once.

Dirt in his mouth, the roar of battle in his ears, and Worth’s too-red, too-human blood on his hands. There must have been explosions and gunfire and screams in the background, but all that had tuned out like radio static in his memory, until all he could hear were those stupid words he really, _really_ didn’t expect to hear. Not ever, really, but especially not then. Underneath the ash on his face and the blood pooling at the corners of his mouth, for just a moment, Worth had worn an expression like this one.

A wave of vertigo washed over Conrad, carrying him far, far downstream.

Worth looked up from the baby and spotted Conrad frozen in the doorway.

“Damn kid’s been through three’a these already,” he grumbled, and the edges of the plate glass scene hardening in Conrad’s mind cracked. “You’d think she ain’t never been fed, the greedy li’l bugger.”

Worth hoisted himself up, still cradling the bundle in his arms. Conrad was too dizzy to respond to that. He felt unmoored, flailing for purchase on something, anything solid. Worth, in typical Worth fashion, finally tossed him a life preserver.

“Like mother like daughter I s’pose,” he grinned. “Here, ‘bout time the missus took a turn.”

Conrad scowled.

“Last I checked, I was the one who spent the whole day working my ass off providing for the kid, while you sat around playing house. I think that makes you the ‘missus’ if anything.”

“What, you ain’t never heard of a workin’ mother? You’re a right sexist cunt, Connie.”

Conrad rolled his eyes, but took the bundle from Worth’s arms anyway, a little gingerly, as if she were an explosive charge. Which, actually, she might as well have been.

Lamont blinked up at him with wide, shining eyes. The power of hindsight on his side, they did now seem a bit too deep, too dark for a human child. She gave him a smile that was perhaps a touch too knowing. Worth handed over the bottle and she took to it with gusto the second Conrad tipped it toward her. Shit, Worth wasn’t kidding.

Conrad chewed his lip.

“She’s not fully human, do you think milk is enough?” He knew next to nothing about regular human childcare, but infernal childcare? He didn’t have a clue where to begin. “Maybe she needs something else. I don’t know, goat’s blood? Antichrist juice? Something?”

Worth snorted and John looked scandalized.

“Fell said ta feed her like a human kid, right? If she needed a blood sacrifice between bottles, I reckon he’d know. So quit yer worryin’, mama bear.”

“Well, I don’t exactly have a copy of my copy of _What to Expect When You’re Expecting the Antichrist_ on hand for reference,” Conrad snapped. The bottle had been full when Conrad walked in, but she was nearing the dregs already. Good thing Hanna had scared up plenty of jars of applesauce and mashed peas.

“Fell did say she might grow faster than normal babies,” Conrad conceded slowly, “I suppose it stands to reason she would eat more too.”

“Well, problem solved then,” Worth said, but his lips were quirked up ever so slightly, and his voice had nothing of the mocking edge it usually had when Conrad was worrying over something stupid. An aftershock of vertigo rippled through him.

“Hanna’ll be over the moon if she sticks ta human food,” Worth yawned, joints popping as he rolled his head side to side. “Imagine he’ll be wantin’ ta teach her about potato chips soon as she sprouts teeth.”

“We should do something for her.”

They both turned to look at John.

He was standing now, eyes still fixed on Lamont as if he hadn’t been listening to a word they’d said.

“I think you’ve done enough for her for one day,” Conrad gave a pointed look at his blood-red hand that not long ago had been a bloody stump leaking on the carpet down the hall. “For one lifetime, actually.”

“Something nice, I mean,” John insisted, face twisting into a familiar, petulant expression. “Something special. Antichrist or not, she’s family now. We should give her a proper welcome.”

Conrad’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“What exactly are you proposing?”

John looked at him like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“She needs to be baptized.”

Conrad very nearly dropped her. Worth’s easy grin twisted back into a familiar scowl.

“What kinda moron—”

“Sorry, are you fucking _dense_?”

“Not a real baptism, obviously,” John said thoughtfully, unperturbed by their less-than-enthusiastic responses. “Hellspawn is hardly suited to formal purification, and even if she was it wouldn’t normally be right to baptize someone who hasn’t professed the faith. But I think she’s going to need all the help she can get.”

If Conrad had been alive, he was fairly sure he would have burst a blood vessel.

“If losing a hand wasn’t enough to teach you a lesson,” Conrad  began icily, “I can’t imagine there’s anything I could say that’ll imbue you with an ounce of common sense, but if you think I’m letting you anywhere near her with a Bible again you’ve got another goddamn thing—”

“No Bibles this time, I promise!” John interrupted. “No exorcisms, no prayers, Lord forgive me. Her road may be far from God’s light, but maybe we can shine some of our own. Besides,” John gave Conrad a hard look, “I was the one who tried to tell you about her in the first place, and you wouldn’t listen. You owe me.”

Conrad deflated. Righteousness heelturned sharply into shame as John balled up his blood-of-Christ-red hand into a sanctimonious fist.

Conrad refused to take all the credit there—it was hardly his fault that John was stupid enough to trot out sacraments in front of the antichrist. But maybe, Conrad thought uneasily, maybe if he hadn’t been so dismissive, things would have gone differently.

“She’s not even ours, John. We can’t keep her.”

“All the more reason we should give her what we can while we have her.”

Conrad looked helplessly to Worth for backup, but Worth just shrugged.

“Hell, I don’t care if he wants ta throw a bat mitzvah so long as it shuts him up. ‘s his own damn hand on the line. We kin stick her in a baby bjorn or somethin’ so he don’t drop her again.”

Conrad was about to turn back to John with another halfhearted rebuttal, but that made him do a double take. His eyes narrowed incredulously in Worth’s direction.

“How the hell did the phrase ‘baby bjorn’ ever become a part of your vocabulary?”

Worth shrugged again, looking a little abashed this time. Or as close to abashed as Worth ever got, which was somewhere closer to the territory of leering defensiveness than actual embarrassment. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Parents were lazy and Liv was a goddamn handful. Ya pick up some shit.”

John’s bright, hopeful eyes were beaming up at him and Worth’s face still had that strange, easy look around the edges and the spot behind his eye was throbbing again and Conrad found that, quick and abrupt as water down a drain, all the fight had gone out of him.

“Fine,” he snapped, plopping the baby into John’s arms. His head was throbbing worse than ever, and all he could think about now was sleep. “Fine, if you want to try to baptize the antichrist, go ahead. Be my guest. But don’t come crying to me when you need another limb reattached.”

*   *   *

John managed to get them all shepherded into the pews of his rinkydink church just two days later.

It was a Monday evening (“Sunday is the Lord’s day,” John had said, “it didn’t seem right.”) and the sun had only just been swallowed up by the trees. Apparently even being nocturnal didn’t save you from having to get up way too early for church.

John was in full preacher garb, looking self-righteous as ever. But hell, Conrad supposed, he kind of had a right to be this time. He’d gotten them here, hadn’t he? Convinced them to put off the next job, joined Hanna on his determined door-knocking to hunt up borrowed Sunday finery for them all, impelled Conrad and Worth to trust him, however briefly, with the safety and wellbeing of their baby.

Of _the_ baby _._ That was what he meant.

Hanna was fidgeting excitedly in the front pew, looking like a child borrowing his father’s suit. Bidzina, for all the world, looked the same as he had six years ago. Hanna had even found him an orange shirt to wear, somehow. The two of them and a doe-eyed girl Conrad had never seen before watched from the other side of the aisle as John glided up to the pulpit.

Several conflicting urges were battling it out in his head at that moment. He seriously weighed the option to cut and run. From the strangeness of the moment, from the strangeness of everything about his whole life. From the complete, futile _idiocy_ of a baptism for the literal antichrist. From the meaninglessness of a welcoming ceremony for a child that wasn’t even theirs, really. It wasn’t too late to take off, to steal little Lamont far away from all of this.

On the other side of the fight there was something else.

Something warm and fierce that he wasn’t quite sure where to place, but he was pretty sure it lived in the same neighborhood of his mind as the vignette from John’s living room. Conrad couldn’t name it, exactly, but it was strong enough to keep him rooted to the splintery wood bench, sweating in a blazer several sizes too large. He glanced over at Worth.

And _there_ was another thing. Worth could almost—ALMOST—pass for handsome in a suit.

Worth had kicked up a fuss about it when John had pressed the neatly folded outfits into their hands the night before, going on about monkey suits and prissy fags. But up against the force of Conrad’s impatience and John’s relentless pouting, he had finally put the damn thing on. He looked a little sullen about it still, but Conrad had to admit he looked good in black and white. Plus, it was the first time in he couldn’t remember how long that he’d see Worth totally clean. Combed hair, scrubbed skin almost luminous in the light of the moon through the window and the candles on the dais, hell, even the scruff on his chin looked soft enough to lean into. Conrad had to catch himself before he actually did.

Little Lamont fussed in Conrad’s arms as John cleared his throat and took the stand.

“Friends,” he said solemnly, “tonight we celebrate the gift of new life. We are gathered to welcome this child, Lamontoinette Worth-Achenleck—”

Conrad almost hightailed it right then and there.

He had never agreed to ‘Lamontoinette’ and he sure as _hell_ had never agreed to hyphenate. Hadn’t he and Worth been clear on the fact that they were _not_ married? And even if they were, why did Worth’s name get to come first?

Conrad snapped his head around, outraged, ready to demand to know if Worth had anything to do with this, to smack the leering, smug expression Conrad was sure must be spreading from ear to ear right off his face.

But as he turned, the accusation dried up in his mouth.

Worth was a little amused, but far from smug, and nowhere close to outrage. His eye met Conrad’s and he just shook his head as if to say: “What the hell can ya do?”

But there was that look again too. Jagged at the edges, cut with a little humor, a little irony at the absurdity of it all. But still, it was there, something still and steady, something…almost peaceful. Conrad let the irritation die in his chest, the words drop ineffectually back down his throat

Fine. Lamontoinette Worth-Achenleck it was. She was lucky she probably wouldn’t spend a day of her life in a regular school—the bullying would be relentless. Though, as the antichrist, Conrad couldn’t help but think she could probably hold her own against just about anything that came her way. The thought sent a strange swell of pride through him that he didn’t quite know what to do with, so he bit his lip and turned back toward John at the pulpit.

“This child,” John continued, “not of God, but still imbued with the divine covenant inherent in the blood of man, has been given by the Lord a chance to walk in the light, among those who would guide and care for her. She may not have been born under the eye of the divine, but through the care of fathers both earthly and infernal—”

Worth actually grinned at that, and Conrad elbowed him in the ribs. Gently this time though. Gentler than usual, anyway.

“—may she be granted protection, peace, and light during her time among the children of men. Though her blood may bar her from the gates of heaven—” Conrad aimed a warning glare at John, who pretended not to notice “—let her always be guided and protected by her family, and by all those who care for her.”

John bowed his head a moment, then looked up at Conrad and Worth, beckoned them both forward.

Conrad realized all at once, as he stepped up to the altar, cradling this tiny bundle in his arms, smoothing a thumb over a black curl on her tiny, warm head, that he was a little bit scared.

He looked at Lamont, smiling and reaching for his nose. He looked at John, imperious as ever, his eyes burning with a bright sort of determination.

He was scared for both of them. For a repeat of the incident from a few nights ago. But for himself too. And for Worth. For what this meant for all of them. About them.

He gulped hard, tried to swallow it all down, settle something his stomach that was slinking around like cornered prey, restless.

John stretched out his red-purple hand ceremoniously toward Lamont as Conrad found his feet again and stepped up to Worth’s side.

He started regally, “With the laying on of hands—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Conrad snatched the baby abruptly out of John’s reach, and Worth stepped sideways, between them. “Are you insane? _A laying on of hands?_ You said no Bibles, no prayers, none of it. Did you just forget what happened last time?”

Worth was scowling now too.

“I ain’t no expert kid, but I’m pretty sure our li’l hellspawn here won’t take too kindly ta bein’ filled up with the Holy Ghost. And I’m pretty damn sure the Holy Ghost won’t be too keen on it either.”

“Oh please, what kind of idiot do you take me for?” John’s pious expression dropped along with his hand, and he gave them both an impatient look.

“Don’ ask questions ya don’t want answered, Johnny Boy.”

“I’m not trying to exorcise her! The laying on of hands has plenty of practical applications besides exorcism. It’s not even a _true_ baptism, it’s a rite of protection. It’s the only to do this without us all getting blown up, I think. It's the only way to heal her!”

“She doesn’t need healing, John,” Conrad spat, “No matter what you tell your witch-burning followers on Sundays.”

Without realizing it, Conrad had clutched Lamont closer, fiercely, protectively. He looked down at her wide, curious eyes, the spit bubbles popping at the corners of her mouth.

“Da?” she said, only the second time she had spoken since the day she’d been dumped in their arms. Conrad swallowed.

“She’s perfectly fine just the way she is.”

“She was practically dumped by the side of the road,” John snapped back. “More than once, it sounds like. Do you really think her life has been all teddy bears and three square meals a day before you came along? Abandoned by her parents, shunted from family to family without a soul in the world to claim her or take charge of her protection?”

Something hard sparkled in John’s eyes. “Of course she needs healing, and it’s not for her infernal blood.”

Conrad blinked. Worth too seemed almost taken aback, his protective stance loosening. John went on.

“Baptism is about…it’s about conferring protection onto someone who needs it! That protection might not come from the Lord this time, but at least it’ll come from somewhere. Before she can move forward, before anyone in her situation could, she needs a promise. A promise that she’ll always be protected. That she’ll always have people to look out for her. That’s where the healing begins.”

He looked pointedly between Conrad and Worth.

Well shit. Conrad didn’t know what to say to that. Some part of him had still been thinking of John as the world’s worst puppy, one that he and Worth didn’t quite ask for, but that they didn’t have the heart to turn back out into the street or over to the pound. This was _John_. The kid who had spent most of his youth as a brainwashed zealot, who had poured pig’s blood over his head in a night that Conrad still remembered as one of the most humiliating of his unlife, who was pushing twenty and still needed someone to make his sandwiches.

But here on the pulpit, he was someone entirely different. There was an intensity, a tenderness, a maturity that was all new.

“Please,” John added, his voice softening. “I promise this will be good for her. I won’t hurt her.”

And at that moment, somehow, Conrad believed him.

Another wave of pride rushed through him, flooding his throat so that he couldn’t speak if he wanted to. He looked at Worth, who just sucked his teeth and moved aside. Conrad stepped back up to the pulpit, taking his place at Worth’s side.

John cleared his throat and began again.

“With this laying on of hands,” he placed a bloodshot palm on Lamont’s head, “I baptize you, Lamontoinette Worth-Achenleck, in the name of your fathers, the night you dwell in, and the light that will always guide you through it.”

The baby smiled and grabbed at John’s hand as he motioned for Hanna, Bidzina, and the girl to rise and join them.

“All those who swear to protect this child, to heal and love and guide her in all the ways the Lord would guide another child, please join me.”

One by one, each of their motley crew placed a gentle hand on the Lamont’s head—the wide-eyed girl stuck close to John’s side, Hanna beamed and sniffled noisily, wiping away tears, Bidzina looked as close to a smile as Conrad had ever seen him, and Worth…

Worth placed a hand on Lamont’s head and looked up, his eyes finding Conrad’s. That look again, both electric and impossibly soft, so easy and so difficult. The restless creature prowling in Conrad’s chest couldn’t help but settle, purring, into a corner.

Conrad had never wanted so badly to reach out and kiss him.

John was humming something now, the words to which, Conrad assumed, if spoken in Lamont’s presence would have probably blown them all halfway across the room. But it was peaceful anyway. The light of the candles, the shimmer of the moon half-waxed through the windows, playing across Lamont’s sleeping face, could almost be mistaken for divine light.

When they had all drawn back, Lamont hiccuping in Conrad’s arms alone, John crossed himself, saying a prayer as he removed his collar. Conrad caught his eye.

“One day you two will be grateful for everything I do for you,” John sniffed. “No water, no prayers, no profession of faith…I’ll be praying the Hail Mary all week to clean the stench of sacrilege from my soul.”

*   *   * 

Hanna had packed a picnic for afterwards, in spite of the fact that less than half of their number could enjoy it.

There were chicken sandwiches and corn cakes and a jug of moonshine that even John and the girl who tailed him like a duckling accepted a few swigs from, and they sat in the weedy grass outside the church. Lamont was toddling around, pulling herself up and moving with surprising confidence from one of them to another, giggling as she went. Were one-year-olds supposed to be walking like that already? Conrad wasn’t sure, but figured it probably didn’t matter. Nothing about his life so far had been normal, why would fatherhood be normal either?

He winced. There was that word again. That word that never should have applied to him in a hundred, thousand years, and yet, here was this child who had literally been baptized in his arms. Whose name was half his, who made him swell up with something powerful and painful every time he looked at her.

“Could stay here awhile, yanno.”

Conrad looked around. Worth had dropped silently into the grass beside him, his hands draped over his knees. He was watching Lamont too, chewing an unlit cigarette, his tone thoughtful and distinctly un-Worthlike.

“I ain’t crazy about stayin’ a day longer in damn Tallahassee than we gotta, but,” he shrugged. “Wouldn’t be hard ta make it out here for a bit. Yanno. Make a life.”

Conrad stared. Worth leaned back, propped one arm against the ground and slung the other around him.

“If ya wanted.”

If _he_ wanted. Now _that_ had to be the most un-Worthlike thing he’d heard all week. But something in his tone made Conrad stop and think.

A life.

For so long, their life had been the road. Since the beginning of time it felt like, though by all rights six years wasn’t that long. He’d spent more time in group therapy for mental illnesses he didn’t have. The fight, the struggle, the rush of battle and the relentlessness of home on four wheels. The four of them. They already had a life.

Conrad chewed his lip. Lamont had toddled over to Hanna, who was telling her enthusiastically about how much she was going to _love_ cheeseburgers one day, and Bidzina had procured a blanket from somewhere that looked far softer than the ratty old woolen thing she’d been bundled in. This one was freshly knitted and orange, and he tucked it around her as she plopped into the grass.

“What about Hanna? We can’t just up and leave.”

“Nothin’ wrong with a business trip here’n there. She wouldn’t be the first kid to survive workin’ parents.”

John was crouched in the grass too, speaking very seriously to the baby. Something that looked suspiciously like chapter and verse. Conrad twitched with the urge to swoop in and snatch her away from danger, but he knew, deep down, that wasn’t necessary. John had about a hundred chances to hurt her tonight alone if he’d wanted, and he hadn’t. He wouldn’t.

“Heh. Practically a nuclear family now, ain’t we? Hubby, wifey, two li’l bundles’a joy…all we need’s a puppy. Though I s’pose Hanna counts.”

“I thought you said we weren’t married,” Conrad said dryly.

“We ain’t.” Worth’s thumb was drifting in slow circles over Conrad’s shoulder in a way that would have made his heart do strange things if it was still beating. “Gotta keep the Bible-thumpers happy though, eh? Nothin’ says ‘traditional’ like a white picket fence, two bloodsuckin’ fags, and their pair’a hellspawn.”

Conrad actually laughed at that.

“Course,” Worth said with a snicker, resting his chin on the top of Conrad’s head. “That’d mean you’d have to learn ta cook, wifey. And I’d hafta get some desk monkey job. Come home late to a meal from the missus, leave my dirty socks around for ya ta wash. Drink too much on weeknights and pick a fight.”

“You’re a real romantic, you know that?”

“Hey, if we’re pretendin’ ta be married, that mean you’ll start puttin’ out?“

Conrad flicked him in the head, but he was grinning a little in spite of himself. He didn’t say anything, didn’t pull away, allowed himself to lean in to Worth’s touch.

A life.

Not forever. Not for her whole childhood even. But the vignette in John’s living room burned in his mind, and the slow, languorous peace of this moment, imprinting itself as new scene in plate glass, was infectious, warming whatever he had now that passed for blood.

Not forever, but for a while maybe. For now. God, they’d spent so long running, he couldn’t even imagine really what it might feel like to rest—as much as raising a half-infernal child out in the boonies of northern Florida counted as rest. He wasn’t even sure if he knew how.

But as he watched Worth watching—fuck it—watching their daughter and the idiot who passed for their son, he thought that for now, it might be nice to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> More adventures of everyone's favorite antichrist! https://desdemonafiction.tumblr.com/post/150825649017/things-about-hannapocalypse-im-never-gonna-write


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